Broadband

Rural Action Yorkshire understands that broadband is an essential part of life for all communities. Lack of access to broadband leads to increased social disadvantage and is exacerbated due to the decline of and remoteness from local services and other opportunities in rural communities.

On average rural broadband speeds are 15% slower than urban areas and although some many rural communities have benefitted from broadband, overall they have fallen short of advantages for urban populations and this situation is not acceptable.

We know that high speed broadband can improve access to services, quality of life and business viability. Not being able to access the internet or access a high quality internet connection can prevent people from being able to work from home, shop online, access bank accounts, access educational material as well as limiting the access to job opportunities. It can also increase the sense of isolation for people who do not have family and friends living close by, as they are not able to access technologies such as email, webcams and Skype.

This Independent Networks Cooperative Association (INCA) Wireless Special Interest Group will discuss the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) proposals for a rating regime for wireless networks which could land broadband networks with an extra bill for thousands of pounds a year.

A crucial part of the drive to bring better broadband to North Yorkshire and York rests on identifying those areas most in need.You can now help achieve this by carrying out the new speed test and completeing the demand tool below.

Please check it out and complete at your work place and at your home address.

People living in Great Ouseburn are celebrating the first four months of being connected to a superfast broadband network – but are looking for neighbours to get involved to make the service even bigger and better.

Ellingstring is a remote hamlet, high on a hill in stunningly beautiful Lower Wensleydale, part of the renowned North Yorkshire Dales. For many an ideal place to live, visit and stay but with one marked exception - poor broadband speed and reliability. That changed in February 2015 when, through the tenacity of a local company, Ellingstring was given access to superfast broadband via fixed wireless technology.

A redundant water tower at Lovesome Hill four miles north of Northallerton is being born again as a transmitter for superfast wireless broadband. Rural Action Yorkshire's Community Broadband Development Officer, Andy Ryland, reports.

Over the past few months Rural Action Yorkshire (RAY) has been developing a Rural Strategy to review the state of rural Yorkshire, highlight potential opportunities and challenges and suggest priority areas for future activity, both for us and for other organisations working in rural Yorkshire. We have been working in partnership with Humber and Wolds RCC to ensure we are able to present issues and ideas that have resonance across the whole of Yorkshire.

Rural families across the country are concerned that poor broadband connections are harming their children's chances of success at school, according to a survey carried out by insurance firm NFU Mutual. This comes at the same time as the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has issued a report critical of how BT is managing the Government's investment in rural broadband and calling for further payments to be suspended until BT has explained how it has used funds already invested.

The government has announced another large investment into their scheme to connect rural parts of Britain to ‘superfast’ broadband. The investment is £250m nationwide with the county of Yorkshire seeing up to £30m of this investment. The investment will be split up in to different regions with North, South, East and West Yorkshire getting £7.6m, £5.4m, £5m and £6.6m respectively.

A new report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has been published which states that every £1 invested by government in the UK's broadband network boosts the economy by £20. The report claims that the benefits of the government's broadband policy will be shared across the UK, with additional economic activity in rural areas of £4.6bn per year by 2024.

Superfast North Yorkshire, the organisation managing the delivery of broadband across North Yorkshire, have announced their January - June 2014 programme of masterclasses and training events aimed at helping smaller local businesses make the most of their website, internet sales, search engines and social media.

The Government has published its response to a parliamentary report that criticised its treatment of rural areas. The Government claims that the statistics used in the report were misleading. The Government response has disappointed rural campaigners, including Rural Action Yorkshire's umbrella organisation, ACRE.

Superfast North Yorkshire, the project developing fast broadband connections across North Yorkshire, including in rural areas, has developed a new interactive map which householders can use to find out what download speeds to expect in their area now or in the future.